ABSTRACT
Since colonial times, psychiatric care in Pakistan has been highly stigmatized and perceived by families in terms of its violence, neglect and abuse. In the context of the country’s poor psychiatric care and the involvement and complicity of psychiatric institutes in the state’s carceral apparatus especially during the ongoing war on terror, many patients turn to Islamic healers to seek cures for problems of psychosis, depression, convulsions and seizures (dauray). The chapter argues how healers rely on pietistic frameworks for healing by viewing satanic infractions (waswasay) as causes of jinn affliction and illness by extension. Viewing lack of piety as the cause of jinn affliction, healers not only instruct patients to remember God, but also variously negotiate with jinns to keep symptoms of illness at bay. By considering negotiations between healers, patients and spirits, the chapter troubles mind–body dualisms upon which western psychiatric discourses are based. Considering multiple ontologies and voices involved in sites of healing, the chapter explores healing techniques that involve converting spirits to subordinate them to human will, and the salience this treatment acquires in the context of post-9/11 Islamic revivalism in Pakistan.
